Goodbyes
by SilverWolf7
Summary: The Doctor burns a sun to talk to Rose one last time. But will she listen to what he has to say? Part of my Alternatives series.


Yep, my Doomsday Alternatives fic!

Goodbyes

He had looked long and hard for the right sun to burn up. He had known it would take a lot of energy to get into contact without shattering two universes, and he knew that it would take him killing a sun to get it, but the right sun was difficult.

He finally found it, in a place so far out of reach that the only planets he was destroying along with the sun were dead or uninhabited by any life forms. He'd checked too. Several times. But it was definitely the right one. It was also ready to go supernova.

Using the TARDIS, he had managed to tap into Rose's sleeping mind and using that short lived link, got her to go where the link would be strongest. There, he'd be able to set up non physical contact with her. Non physical was something he was actually glad of.

Now that they had been separated, he was finding the quiet of the TARDIS without her a bit much, but he knew it was for the best. He had tried sending her away with her mother to begin with, to live their lives in the alternate universe, but she had come back, without so much as a goodbye to her mother.

She had gotten to the point where her obsession with him and travelling in the TARDIS was so strong, she would abandon her own family with no shame or guilt just to stay on board.

He couldn't travel with someone like that. It wasn't healthy. Now that he could look back at it and think it through, this was the only way to have gotten her out. And he knew, as Jackie had told him not too long before they had disappeared to the alternate Earth, that she would do anything to get back.

The only way to stop her, _the only way_, was to tell her not to. He only hoped he got the words out right. So, he had found the right sun. The power he used to setup the link and send his message to Rose, he just hoped the remaining power lasted long enough for him to say what he had to.

When he opened the link he established, he saw Rose. So she had gotten his message and gotten there before he had been able to connect. Either she was very fast, or the times in the two universes were different. He was betting on the latter. She'd probably received his message days ago.

Even though she had not acted very nicely, especially of late, he still hoped that she hadn't been waiting too long. She turned her head to the side, enough to notice him where he was standing.

He thought she'd try running to him, but instead she stared for a bit, before asking him in a slightly confused way "Where are you?"

He wouldn't lie. Lying here was bad. "Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the universe left. Just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova." He could feel himself getting upset, but he knew that this was important. He had to tell her. He slightly laughed at the foolishness, but necessity of his next sentence. "I'm burning up a sun to say goodbye."

And all Rose could say right then was to shake her head slightly, a look of confusion still on her face. "You look like a ghost."

"Hold on..." he told her, pointing his screwdriver at the TARDIS controls so that his image, he hoped, became solid. She was obviously not listening to a word he was saying while he 'looked like a ghost'.

Now, now she walked over to him, one arm raise slightly, and he couldn't get out the words fast enough to tell her not to. "Can I t..."

"I'm still just an image. No touch."

Her look was one of disbelief and sadness. It looked like she was about to start crying on him. Well, just as long as he didn't start crying in front of her, it didn't really matter.

"Can't you come through properly?" she asked, and the hope in her voice was shattering. Could he, no. And it was this part of the conversation that would be one step closer or further away from destroying at least two universes. He needed her to know.

"The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."

She looked at him, shook her head slightly and a small grin managed to make it onto her face. "So?"

With that one word, he knew he'd have to try and persuade her not to try getting back to him. He hoped Jackie kept her word and was trying on that side, too. Or the entirety of existence for both his and the universe she now lived in would cease to exist. They'd all just be dead.

His morbid thoughts brought a sad smile to his face, and Rose gasped at seeing that. Maybe she was beginning to understand that she couldn't do that. Too much was at risk and she should leave well alone.

Still, he had no idea how to continue on the conversation, so he asked the first question that came into his mind. "Where are we? Where did the gap come out?"

"We're in Norway."

He nodded. "Norway, right."

"About 50 miles out of Bergen. It's called Dårlig Ulv Stranden."

He was momentarily surprised at that, and it probably showed. "Dalek?!"

"Dårlig. It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay." She was smiling and suppressing hysterical laughter at that one. And considering, he was amazed he was any better. And then she was suppressing tears. "How long have you got?"

"About two minutes," he replied, after doing the rough calculations in his head. They'd have had longer if the times weren't so different. He was glad for the shorter time span though. The quicker he got this over with the better.

"I can't think of what to say," Rose said, her voice tight with her need to control her tears. He managed to laugh a bit at that, though his own body was telling him to cry too. Just what he needed. He couldn't afford to waste any time...

He looked up past Rose and spotted Jackie, Mickey and Pete by a jeep. He nodded in their direction. "You've still got Mister Mickey then."

"There's five of us now. Mum, dad, Mickey and the baby." The last was said with a look in her eyes, he had trouble placing. Though if it was a way to make him jealous, she was wrong. If she was pregnant, well, maybe that meant she was moving on.

"You're not..."

"No," she replied and laughed, as if she had gotten him to fall for it. "It's mum. She's three months gone. More Tyler's on the way."

He couldn't help but ask, because he really needed to know. "Well, what about you. Are you..."

She nodded ever so slightly. "Yeah, I'm back working in the shop."

Like as if she knew what he was going to ask, and where she was working had nothing to do with it. He just wanted to know if she was moving on from him and getting on with her life, instead of trying elaborate and dangerous ways of getting back to him. He realised, she'd never give him a chance to say it. She'd interrupt him every time.

He nodded anyway and spat out a quick, "Oh, good for you."

"Shut up. No I'm not. So, the Torchwood on this planet is open for business. I think I know a thing or two about aliens."

He grinned at her at that, and hoping it did some good, said the first thing that came to mind that was positive in light. "Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth." And then, just so she knew she couldn't exist for any longer back in the universe she had been born into, he decided to tell her about her status on his side. "You're dead. Officially, back home. So many people died that day, and you'd gone missing. You're on the list of the dead."

And now she started to cry. He hoped that that meant that it had truly sunk in that even if she did come back over she had no official life any longer. She'd be nothing but the ghost she had said he looked like earlier. Nonexistent, blurred around the edges. Nothing.

So, he decided to make sure she knew that she now had a life where she was. It was better to live, then to become a ghost, after all. Better to stay with her family and live, then stay with him as nothing. "Here you are. Living your life, day to day. The one adventure I can never have."

She was really crying now, but she still managed to get out words. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

"You can't."

"What are you going to do," she managed to choke out.

"Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life. Last of the Time Lords."

"On your own?"

And she had to ask that. Now, he finally had the chance to move on with his life, and while he didn't want to be alone, he would rather that than living in the shadows like he had been doing the past few months. So, in answer, he just nodded at her.

"I..." she started, but had to stop as she had momentarily lost her ability to talk through her pain. And then she said it. Out loud. And he couldn't believe it, and he really couldn't say it back. "I love you!"

And even though he had promised himself it would be a time of no lies, he couldn't help himself. "Quite right, too."

Time was almost up, he could feel it. So, he decided right then to not say it, but if it made it so that she wouldn't come back, then so be it. "And, if it's my last chance to say it...Rose Tyler..."

He had waited just long enough during the breaks in his sentence for the last of the power of the supernova to be used up, and his image faded from that beach, and he found himself fully in the TARDIS.

As soon as the link fully charged down, and the gaps between the universes had fully closed, sealing Rose away from him forever, he let himself cry. At first, slowly, then without any worries that someone would see.

He buried his head in his hands and cried because he had just lost the only person he had at his side for the past few years. The one who had taken his hand and saved him from his own reckless death. And to start with it had been good, though Rose had always been too stubborn and selfish for her own good.

He hadn't been able to get rid of her when he was in his last incarnation, even during those times he had tried. And he had been too recklessly happy after his regeneration to notice that she had moved further into the realms of obsession when it came to him and travelling through time and space.

That it had to end this way was just as shattering to him as it was to her, just for different reasons. Well, they were both grieving, but he wasn't doing so over a lost love. He was doing so over a lost life. A lost chance. A lost friend.

A friend, he was only now noticing since she had disappeared behind that wall, he had lost quite a while back.

It took him a while to pull himself together, wipe the tears off his face and get his breathing back to normal. Once had had done so though, he took a deep breath and looked to the console.

Time to move on.


End file.
